Other forms: tucked, tucks, tucking
To tuck something is to push a loose end snugly into place so that it stops flapping. Your shirt into your trousers, a blanket under a mattress, a note pushed into a coat pocket.
Tuck in and tuck up are what you do to a child at bedtime, with the sheets pulled tight and nobody escaping. Tucked away means hidden somewhere small and quiet, as in a cottage tucked away at the end of a lane, or savings tucked away in an account. In British English, tuck in also means start eating with enthusiasm: sit down and tuck in. As a noun, a tuck is a fold sewn into cloth to make it fit, and in diving and gymnastics the tuck is the tight ball shape with the knees pulled to the chest. A tummy tuck is the operation that takes away loose skin.
1verbtuckTo push a loose edge or end into a tight or safe place.
“He tucked his shirt in before he went into the interview.”
synonyms: fold in
2verbsomewhereTo put something somewhere small, safe or out of sight.
“She tucked the letter into the back of the drawer and forgot it.”
3verbcomfortableTo make somebody comfortable in bed by pulling the covers in around them.
“He tucked the children in and read two pages before the light went off.”
4nounfoldA fold sewn into a piece of clothing to make it fit better.
“The dressmaker put a tuck in each side of the waist.”
5nounpositionA position with the knees pulled tight to the chest, used in diving and gymnastics.
“She went into a tuck and turned twice before she hit the water.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
Tuck comes from Middle English tuken, to torment or to stretch cloth, and Old English tucian, to torment or vex, helped along by Middle Dutch tucken, to tuck. Behind them lies a Proto-Germanic sense of drawing and pulling, from the Proto-Indo-European root dewk-, to pull. Cloth is the link: a cloth-worker pulled and stretched, and pulling a loose end tight is still what you do to a shirt. Touch is a doublet, the same word arriving by another road.
Proto-Indo-European
*dewk- — to pull
Proto-Germanic
*teuh-
Middle Dutch
tucken — to tuck
Old English
tūcian — to torment, vex
Middle English
tuken
English, today
tuck
Built from
From Middle English tuken, touken (“to torment, to stretch (cloth)”), from Old English tūcian (“to torment, vex”) and Middle Dutch tucken (“to tuck”), both from Proto-Germanic teuh-, teug- (“to draw, pull”) (compare also tukkōną), from Proto-Indo-European dewk- (“to pull”). Akin to Old High German zucchen (“to snatch, tug”), zuchôn (“to jerk”), German Low German tuken (“to tug, pluck, grab and pull towards”), Old English tēon (“to draw, pull, train”). a doublet of touch.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA